Meet Ann

Nice to meet you! My name’s plain & simple Ann, without even the fanciful 'e.' Glad you found your way here into some quiet. I know — it can get a bit loud out there. Maybe you’d like to wander a bit in the quiet — — Let's connect...
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Because this is the Truth about the real “Mother’s Day Card Mothers”

And when they placed that vernix-covered, wrinkled babe into my 21-year old arms that muggy Saturday evening in May, no wave of relief, or ecstasy washed over me.

Being the first to caress another human being’s cheek, I only felt raw, unadulterated, strangling terror.

If I could have ran?

I would have.

The newborn baby boy on my chest drowsily opened one eye.

That one eye of his looked into mine —- and I choked.

This baby — this human being — so helpless and fragile, was depending on me —- flawed, deficient, inexperienced me.

On Sunday, my husband would offer me my very first Mother’s Day card. We hadn’t been married 11 months.

I wasn’t ready for any of this.

I had never shaped another person before. Really, I hadn’t even taken care of a fish or a dog or a cat before. Didn’t someone at least need a license or something before taking home a swaddled — soul?

And I knew, far too personally, how the struggles of a Mother can affect a vulnerable child.

A mere seven days before birthing our firstborn, still lumbering under very pregnant, I had wandered down the hollow halls of a locked psychiatric ward.

Heavy steels doors had clanked shut behind me.

My mother was behind those steel doors.

I had left my mother behind those steel doors.

She’d voluntarily signed herself in for 72 hour lockdown behind those doors. I couldn’t have known that only 72 hours after those 72 hours — I’d go into labor to become a mother myself.

I had stood there on the far side of the those steel doors, one hand on my swollen belly, my other brushing away all this sadness and fear that brimmed, me right too full, and I’d prayed. Prayed that somehow her three days behind those doors might somehow bring peace.

Because my Mama hadn’t had much of that.

She’d been raised by an angry alcoholic.

She’d suffered the unimaginable at the hands of the unsympathetic — who should have undone themselves to protect her.

She’d survived the stuff of horror movies.

Then, in the autumn of her 26th year, with two freckled preschoolers and one 3 week-old baby in her arms, she’d seen it happen right in front of her — her white-blonde 18-month-old little girl fell under the crushing wheels of a delivery truck right in front of her eyes.

Worst nightmares can become your life and there is no waking up but only living through.

In one catastrophic, cosmic moment — the haunting of her past fused with the horrors of her present.

And the demons that seemed to descend took beautiful my Mama away from me, from us — to hospitals and psychiatric wards throughout my childhood.

Standing in front of those steel doors, I was about to embark on this rite of passage from needing a mother — to being a mother.

How in the world?

How in the world could I have the wherewithal to lead another human being in the right way —when I was just making my way myself?

How in the world can a woman become a Mother and rightly raise up a child — unless by a miracle of the Father?

And that’s what I felt.

Not just the heaviness of my baby-swollen side — but something more…

The mantle of motherhood can feel like the weight of a universe and raising a child is to be entrusted with a bit of eternity. Would I be fool enough to take the matter lightly? The charge of a small child is no small charge and you’ll have to charge the gates of heaven to hold back the forces of hell.

My body answered the timing of it’s Maker, and against my will, I went into labor four weeks early.

I went into labor and I trembled.

That first long night in the darkened hospital room, my hand traced the fingers and toes of this new little person.

How could I do this?

The lump in my throat grew.

Failure was certain.

I was going to let this little boy down. Parenting is an experiment in radical grace and the work of every parent is to fully give to the child. And it’s the work of every child to fully forgive the parents.

Would he?

I found it hard to breathe.

My Bible lay open on my side table.

I ran my hand over the crinkled page, knowing the words and the truth that whispered somewhere on that darkened leaf, the one I had left it open to.

Join me in #365GIFT — and become a brokenhearted hallelujah, a GIFT to the world, every day for a year, living broken and given, one intentional act of brokenhearted compassion at a time. Subscribe to posts and let’s begin together.